The present invention relates to dispensing a substance from a container by means of a dispensing apparatus.
The present invention proposes to dispense a substance from a container filled with a single portion of substance. In particular the substance may be a concentrate, like e.g. a syrup for preparation of a beverage. The container comprises a preformed deformable body, preferably made of sheet material, defining a filling cavity, which body has an opening and an integral planar circumferential rim at least partly surrounding said opening. The opening is closed by a cover sheet which is sealed to the planar circumferential rim by means of a sealing seam.
According to the invention the substance, e.g. syrup for a soft drink or a concentrate for coffee or other beverages may be dispensed by the dispensing apparatus directly from the container into a serving container, e.g. a glass, a cup, or a bottle. Also water is dispensed by the dispensing apparatus into the serving container such that mixing of the substance and the water takes place in the serving container thereby preventing the contamination of the dispensing apparatus with the substance, which is advantageous in view of cleaning and maintenance of the apparatus. Furthermore it warrants that concentrates for different beverages are not contaminating each other when subsequently different beverages are prepared by the apparatus.
From WO 2005/077811 and WO 2007/025773 such a dispensing system is known.
The known dispensing system makes use of the deformability of the cover sheet for opening the container. The container body is retained and compressed by compressing means in the dispensing apparatus. The sealing seam comprises a predetermined rupturing zone. When the container body is compressed, a part of the covering sheet located near the rupturing zone of the sealing seam bulges out due to the internal pressure in the container. Thereby the sealing seam is ruptured at the predetermined rupturing zone and substance is expelled out of the created passage due to the internal pressure.
Advantageously the containers of the type according to the invention may be formed and filled by a so called Form, Fill and Seal process (FFS), in which a plurality of cup-like container bodies are formed from a flat sheet of plastic or other suitable material by a vacuum or thermo forming process. Next, the container bodies are filled with substance. After the container bodies of the sheet have been filled, a cover sheet, e.g. an aluminium foil is sealed over the container bodies. Finally, the circumferential rims of the containers are formed by cutting waste material away from the sheet between the container bodies. The containers resulting from one sheet may be separated from each other by the cutting operation.
It is an object of the present invention to provide improved containers for such a dispensing system.